IHS Markit has published the new data for Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay. The new data provides information on Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay’s addressable smartphones by region and by country for 60+ countries from 2014 to 2021

TCL launches the first BlackBerry smartphone, the flagship KEYone, since it secured a brand license from BlackBerry the company. The new BlackBerry portfolio has a chance of success, because few companies now offer BlackBerry-style design and features, and the productivity-focused smartphone segment is underserved. But TCL must be careful not to price itself out of its target segment.

Months after announcing that BCE would acquire Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) in May 2016 in a CAN$3.9 billion (US$3.0 billion) deal, Canadian federal regulators have finally granted approval for the deal.

AT&T is set to acquire OTT solutions and managed-media- services provider Quickplay Media. Although the terms of the deal are unknown, the sale almost certainly surpasses USD 100m in value; private equity group Madison Dearborn Partners purchased a majority stake in Quickplay in Q3 2012 for roughly USD 100m.

HBO is to launch programming day and date with the US on a dedicated channel launching in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The channel, launching in 2016, is a joint venture with the pan-Arabic pay TV operator OSN. The Dubai-based operator will enrich the content offer of its On Demand service with more than 2,000 hours of HBO programming, including a thousand hours of complete box sets of HBO TV series.

Shaw Communications, Canada’s 2nd largest pay TV operator, has abounded its IPTV service in development since 2013. As a result, Shaw took a C$55 million write down charge in its fiscal 3rd quarter results for its abandoned IPTV assets. Instead, the company will look to license Comcast’s X1 platform and leverage Comcast’s cloud technology for multiple screen experience and use of devices both in and out of the home. Shaw is working closely with Comcast and will being a technical trial of the X1 cloud platform.

Global online video service Netflix has announced that it is going to enter Australia and New Zealand in March 2015. Outside the USA, Netflix is already available in Canada, Latin America, the UK and Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium. Australia and New Zealand bring the number of countries with the service to more than 50.

Early indication from 3rd quarter reporting results is that cable in North America continues to improve in its battle against IPTV and Satellite. The largest cable operator in US, Comcast, and the two largest in Canada, Rogers and Shaw, have all shown improvements in video subscriber losses in the quarter compared to the same period last year.

Canadian cable TV market leaders, Rogers and Shaw, intend to launch a subscription video competitor to Netflix, dubbed Shomi, in November 2014 at a price of $8.99 a month. The service will initially be available to Rogers and Shaw Broadband and TV customers.

WWE Network will arrive in Canada as a premium linear pay TV channel as part of a 10 year deal between WWE and Rogers Communications. The deal makes Rogers the sole distributor of WWE Network and WWE programming (including pay per view events) in Canada through 2024. Along with WWE programming continuing on Sportsnet 360, digital rights will also be granted for Raw, SmackDown and Main Event on Sportsnet NOW and Rogers Anyplace TV.

Cogeco, Canada's third largest cable TV operator, has decided to abandon a move into IPTV, taking an impairment charge of C$32.2 million (US $29.9 million) in the second quarter (the third quarter of the company's 2014 financial year). Cogeco will instead become the first Canadian operator to form a partnership with TiVo, providing its TV customers with a multiroom service which is expected to launch in the first half of 2015.

The sale of VDSL2 vectored lines passed the 5 million milestone in March 2014, according to communications equipment firm Alcatel Lucent. Telcos such as Bezeq in Israel, KPN in the Netherlands, Telecom Argentina, Telecom Italia, TE Data in Egypt and NBN Co in Australia now use vectoring to reduce crosstalk and increase downstream speeds on their VDSL2 networks.

Japanese telco, NTT is trialing Ultra High Definition (UHD) video delivery for its IPTV service, which is branded NTT Plala Hikari TV. The trial is currently operating as part of the video on demand (VoD) service. Japan-based Sumitomo Electric Network is supplying set-top boxes (STBs) for the trial. These are based on a system on a chip (SoC) solution from Canadian vendor ViXS Systems.

Online subscription service Netflix ended Q1 2014 with 11.8 million paying subscribers in its International business. The company added more than 2 million paying subscribers in the quarter where there were no new territory launches, a quarterly growth rate of 21%.

OSN, the Dubai-based pay TV satellite operator, is expanding its Arabic-language programming as a strategic move to extend its customer base and to further position its brand as the number one destination for premium content in the MENA region.